School of Social Sciences
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Item Comparison Of Stochastic Frontier Approaches For Estimating National Efficiency: An Application To Sub-Saharan African Countries(Journal Of Economic Development, 2018) Danquah, M.; Ouattara, B.In this paper, we attempt to estimate pure national (technical) efficiency for 19 SSA countries over the 1960-2010 period. In doing this, we compare conventional stochastic frontier models for panel data with several recently developed models that seek to control for unobserved heterogeneity in the inefficiency component. We find that the ‘true’ random effects model that treats unobserved heterogeneity in our national dataset generates more reasonable efficiency estimates. Moreover, the results confirm that most SSA countries operate far from the efficient frontier.Item Better decisions for food security? Critical reflections on the economics of food choice and decision-making in development economics(Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2020) Stevano, S.; Codjoe, E.; Johnston, D.With malnutrition recognized as a key public health issue, attention has been placed on how individuals can make better decisions to attain food and nutrition security. Nevertheless, food practice entails a complex set of decisions that are not fully understood. This paper interrogates the focus on food choice by investigating how socio-economic relations shape practices of food provisioning. Given the surge of behavioral approaches in development economics and our focus on a middle-income country, we contextualize food choice in the transformations of the conceptualizations of decision-making in development economics. We draw on mixed-method evidence on food consumption practices among schoolchildren in Accra, Ghana. We find that the food decision-making process is complex in that it entails multiple moments and people, and embodies contradictory motivations. Decisions are negotiated outcomes reflecting social relations of power among the actors involved. Socio-economic inequality fragments the urban food environment and material living conditions. Furthermore, the concentration of capital gives the food industry the power to shape material and cultural relations to food in ways that extraordinarily limit the scope for individual choice. This is a critical case study to understand the contemporary dynamics of malnutrition in the urban Global South, with broader relevance for the analysis of food poverty elsewhere.Item The Neuropsychological And Psychosocial Predictors Of Juvenile Delinquency: Comparing Detained Delinquents And Matched Control Group(University of Ghana, 2020-11) Turkson, S.M.A.The causes of juvenile delinquency are varied. Research has focused largely on psychosocial factors although there is growing evidence that brain factors are equally implicated. Identifying the causes of delinquency is very important as it helps with rehabilitation of youth who are caught in the world of crime or at risk of becoming delinquent. In the present study, the objectives were to investigate broadly, psychological and social predictors of delinquency. Specifically, the objectives were to examine the extent to which selected neurocognitive abilities and psychosocial characteristics can predict delinquency. A battery of neuropsychological tests was used to collect data from 84 detained delinquents and 31 matched controls between the ages of 14 and 18 years. Using the logistic regression analysis, results indicated that poor verbal ability was a robust neuropsychological predictor of juvenile detention. In addition, low socioeconomic status more than doubled the likelihood of juvenile detention. Somatic complaints and rule breaking behavior were emotional/behavioral problems that almost doubled the likelihood of juvenile detention. Inadequate parental supervision; low parental education and childhood abuse/trauma may account for the findings. Recommendations include, extensive neuropsychological evaluations need to be included in the legal decision-making process at the juvenile courts. Prison officers should be trained on the care and management of children with neuropsychological deficits. Teachers should be trained to identify children who are at risk for delinquency, so that early interventions can be madeItem The Implications Of Parental Intimate Partner Violence On Young Adults’ Intimate Relationships(University of Ghana, 2022-03) Boakye-Duah, S.Intimate Partner Violence is a significant global, social, and general medical condition in both developed and developing nations. Violent behavior can be transferred from a present generation to the next when one witnesses or gets exposed to violence between one’s parents, although the impact may differ from males to females. Witnessing Intimate Partner Violence in the initial stages of your life as a child can be very disturbing. Objective: This study sought to explore the implications of parental intimate partner violence on young adults’ intimate relationships by exploring participants’ knowledge on the types of IPV, ways by which participants navigated through their experiences of IPV, implications for their own intimate relationships and finally ways they navigated the good and bad aspects of their intimate relationships. Method: With the use of purpose sampling technique and snowball sampling, a total of fifteen participants were selected for the study. The data was organized and analyzed by employing Thematic Analysis Format. Findings showed that there is a gendered experience of intimate partner violence. Participants highlighted four types of intimate partner violence namely, verbal, physical, psychological, and economic violence. Gaslighting was one unique form of psychological violence that emerged in the study. Most participants developed fear for marriage, divorce, modelling violent behaviour, resisting the support of third parties to choose safer ways of navigating challenges within their own intimate relationships. The study showed that based on these experiences, participants devised strategies that will be a hindrance to the rise of violence in their own intimate relationships. The contribution of this thesis to knowledge is that it has revealed the gendered experiences of Parental Intimate Partner Violence and the negative implication of participants intimate relationships.Item Understanding Mass Wasting In Metropolitan Accra(University Of Ghana, 2020-09) Arhinful, A.A.KMetropolitan areas are one the fast-growing urban metropolis in Sub-Saharan Africa with respect to both demographic densification and expansion of the built-up environment. The sprawling nature of Metropolitan Accra has also resulted in various human activities such as settlement, stone quarrying, and sand mining. The resultant effect is the exhibition of signs of mass wasting in the metropolitan area for some years now. Mass wasting refers to the wide variety of processes that result in the downward and outward movement of slope-forming materials including rock, soil, artificial fill, or a combination of these. The study employed a mixed-method approach to ascertain the triggers of mass wasting in Metropolitan Accra. Specifically, the study assessed the vulnerability levels, residents’ perceived risk to mass wasting and presented some recommendations for policy considerations. A total of 130 respondents were used for the study: 124 household survey and 4 in-depth interviewees. The results further showed that the main trigger for mass wasting as perceived by respondents in the study communities were anthropogenic factors with environmental impacts making majority of responds in relation to mass wasting. The results again revealed that respondents at the summit of hills perceived themselves to be less exposed to mass wasting than those along the slope and base of the hill thus respondents along the slope and base of the slope are perceived to be at greater risk of mass wasting events. The findings again revealed that, majority of the communities at the northern part of Ga South were less prone to mass wasting compared to those of the southern part, exposed to high risk of mass wasting. Weija-Gbawe had some patches of areas very low to mass wasting with the interior part accounting for some major high-risk zones. The study suggested some recommendations for policy considerations to help manage the event.Item Job Insecurity And Burnout Among Private Security Officers: The Roles Of Work-Family Conflict And Procedural Justice(University of Ghana, 2022-01) Mahama, S.Numerous studies have documented the detrimental impact of job insecurity on burnout among different employees. However, the roles of contextual factors such as procedural justice and work-family conflict in the relationship between job insecurity and burnout have received little attention. Using the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model, the study sought to examine the roles of procedural justice and work-family conflict in the relationship between job insecurity and burnout. One hundred and eighty-four (n = 184) employees working in private security organisations in the Greater Accra region of Ghana conveniently served as the respondents for the study. The Job Insecurity Scale (JIS, Work-Family Conflict Scale (WFCS), Justice Perceptions Scale (JPS), and the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory (OLBI), which has two dimensions (job disengagement and emotional exhaustion), were used in data collection. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was the software used in analysing the data. The data were analysed using bivariate correlations and multiple regression analysis). Findings of the study indicated that job insecurity was positively related to the disengagement and exhaustion dimensions of burnout. Work-family conflict moderated the relationship of job insecurity with exhaustion but not disengagement. Procedural justice mediated the relationship between job insecurity and the components of burnout (job disengagement and emotional exhaustion). These findings suggest the need for managers in private security organizations to implement measures to reduce work-family conflict and ensure procedural justice to help minimize the impact of job insecurity on security officers.Item Raising Children In Urban Slums Of Ghana: Exploring The Experiences Of Young Mothers In Selected Slums Of Accra(University of Ghana, 2021-12) Brempong, P.N.A.Slums serve as home to a billion people, and this figure is expected to rise exponentially as most third-world countries continue to urbanise. In Ghana, about 4.8 million people live in slums and lack basic amenities. Given the unavailability of basic amenities in slum areas, raising children by young mothers in such environments becomes even more challenging as they are mostly considered not to have mastered that task of parenting. This study sought to: (a) explore the childcare practices of young mothers in raising their children in the slums of Ghana’s capital, Accra; (b) find out the challenges young mothers encounter in raising their children in the slums of Ghana’s capital, Accra; and (c) ascertain the coping mechanisms young mothers utilize in raising their children in the slums of Ghana’s capital, Accra. Using a sample size of twenty (20), the participants were purposively selected from two study sites: Old Fadama and African Eleven. A qualitative research design was used for this study, with in-depth interviews being the main data collection method. The data was categorised with the help of NVivo 12 Pro software, while Smith and Osborn’s Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used to analyse the data. The findings of the study revealed that most of the participants resort to the pharmacy rather than the hospital when their children fall ill because there are no clinics or hospitals within the slums. Furthermore, young mothers exercised control over their children through corporal punishments such as beatings, deprivation of privileges, and confining them indoors whenever they displayed unruly behaviour. Additionally, young mothers in their bid to raise their children encountered some feeding challenges due to financial constraints. Notwithstanding the challenges young mothers encountered, they were able to cope through the support of their peers, friends, and co-workers within the slum. Young mothers adopted some strategies such as endurance, tolerance and denial, savings and credit facilities, and group feeding strategies such as food rationing. With this, young mothers had to skip meals, fast, and reduce the quantity of food eaten in order to provide for their children. The study concludes that the lack of basic amenities within the two slums further worsens the plight of young mothers, as such, putting them in despair. To exploit or scale up the hope of young mothers in slums, the efforts of the government, stakeholders, and local and civil society groups (including community-based and faith-based organizations) should aim at improving the socio-economic conditions (especially education, health, and infrastructure) of both slums on a sustainable basis. In the long run, social workers should help link young mothers and families to resources, interventions, or organizations that could help them improve their well-being.Item Child Disability And Mother’s Labour Force Participation(University Of Ghana, 2021-10) Opoku, M.The world and especially, Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) continues to experience relatively low female labour force participation rates– a phenomenon mainly attributed to childbirth and childcare, coupled with the primary role of being the caretaker of the home. However, the growing phenomenon of increased female labour force participation in recent times has caught the attention of researchers and development practitioners because of its usefulness in measuring gender inequality. The study draws on the Ghana Living Standards Survey Round Seven (GLSS VII), to investigate the effect of child disability on maternal labour force participation. It applies the probit and multinomial logistic models to estimate the effects that child disability has on maternal employment status and the type of employment chosen after the incidence of child disability. Also, to account for endogeneity bias, differences in a mother’s ability to handle children were considered. The study finds a negative but insignificant correlation between child disability and mother’s employment status which suggests that mothers with children who are disabled are less likely to be employed. Taking the types of disabilities into consideration on mother’s employment status, only sensory disability predicted mother’s employment status. Mothers with children who had a sensory disability are 17.1 percent less likely to be employed. Considering mothers‟ choice of employment, we observe a positive correlation between child disability and no employment and a negative correlation for formal and informal employment. We suggest that policies or programmes that provide childcare centers or services and after school care services in schools can greatly help release mothers for labour market activities.Item Microeconomic Determinants Of Income Inequality In Ghana(University Of Ghana, 2022-07) Adurayi, M.A.The subject of inequality is relevant in economic discussions, considering its impact on development and growth. According to the Ghana Living Standard Survey (GLSS), Ghana's inequality measured by the Gini Coefficient grew from 0.42 in 2012/2013 to 0.45 in 2016/17. This increase in inequality could threaten national growth and poverty reduction initiatives, undermine social stability, and exacerbate political discontent within the nation. Hence, to curtail such events, it is prudent to understand the factors influencing inequality in Ghana. In line with that, this study aimed at investigating the microeconomic drivers of inequality in Ghana. Using data from the sixth and seventh rounds of the GLSS, this study employed the Recentered Influence Function (RIF) model to investigate the factors affecting Ghana's Gini Coefficient. In addition, the study used the RIF -Oaxaca Blinder decomposition technique to determine the impact of household characteristics on inequality over time. The study found that for both rounds of the GLSS, household heads located in the Western, Volta, Brong Ahafo, Central and Upper East regions caused a decline in inequality compared to household heads in the capital region, Greater Accra. Also, a household head with secondary or primary levels of education resulted in a decrease in inequality relative to a household head with no education. In addition, household heads who receive remittances contributed to a reduction in inequality compared to their counterparts who do not receive remittances. The study recommends that tackling the causes of inequality can be achieved through socioeconomic empowerment efforts such as educational policy initiatives. Thus, pursuing educational policies focused on improving the accessibility and quality of education will have a favourable effect on reducing inequality. Furthermore, a framework for accelerating regional development in Ghana should be created to promote growth. Localized growth initiatives should be developed and implemented by MMDAs (Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies). These initiatives would engender growth within the various regions in Ghana and contribute to reducing inequality. Finally, the government should create an enabling environment for robust transfer systems that would facilitate the smooth transfer of remittances.Item Exploring Suicidal Behaviours Among Adolescents In Orphanages In Ghana(University of Ghana, 2023-03) Adibrosu, J.A.Prevalence studies among adolescents have shown that in sub-Saharan Africa suicide is a common phenomenon and a growing concern. However, no study in Ghana has focused on suicidal behaviours among adolescents in orphanages given their vulnerability and the stressful psychological outcomes of residential care placement identified by some researchers. This study therefore explored the presence of suicidal behaviours (that is, the 12-month prevalence rate of suicidal behaviour), the factors associated with suicidal behaviours in the target population, and the significant predictors of suicidal behaviours in the sample. Using a quantitative approach, two hundred and fifty-six adolescents from orphanages within the Greater Accra, Central and Eastern Regions were purposively sampled to complete measures on a general psychosocial functioning questionnaire. Findings showed that the 12—month prevalence estimates of suicide ideation, suicide planning and suicide attempt were 29.2%, 11.3%, and 5.1%, respectively. Furthermore, factors associated with suicidal behaviour were found to be multi-contextual: psychological (depression, anxiety and stress), psychosocial (sense of belonging, quality of life), health risk behaviours (smoking status), and social (media reportage of suicide). What is more, the significant predictors of suicidal behaviour identified by the present study were narrowed down to two main factors: psychosocial (sense of belonging) and demographic characteristics (sex: male). The Ideation-to-Action Framework and the Interpersonal Psychological Theory of suicidal behaviour are used to explain prevalence estimates. Again, the multi-contextual nature of the correlates of suicidal behaviour is explained with the Ecological Theory of suicidal behaviour. Suicide prevention and clinical practice implications are also highlighted.